Pascal’s Wager

with a quick argument about probability

November 13, 2019

1 Pascal
Do you believe it to be impossible that God is infinite, without
parts?—Yes.[—]I wish therefore to show you an infinite and in-
divisible thing. It is a point moving everywhere with an infinite
velocity; for it is one in all places, and is all totality in every
place...
Infinite movement, the point which fills everything, the moment
of rest; infinite without quantity, indivisible and infinite...
—Pascal (231-232, Trotter’s trans.)

Definition of “wager that God exists”? Definition of “live as if God

exists?”

Premise 1. If you live as if God exists and God exists, your net is positively
infinite.

Premise 2. If you live as if God exists and God does not exist, your net is,
at worst, negatively finite.

Premise 3. There is a nonzero probability that God exists.

Subconclusion 1. If you live as if God exists, your expected net is posi-

tively infinite. [P1-3]

Premise 4. If you do not live as if God exists and God exists, your net is
not positively infinite.

Premise 5. If you do not live as if God exists and God does not exist, your
net is not positively infinite.

1
Subconclusion 2. If you do not live as if God exists, your expected net is
not positively infinite. [P4-5]

Premise 6. You know that [S1] and that [S2]. (from the soundness of the
arguments to S1 and S2, your having seen them, and your accepting of them
as sound).

Premise 7. You are able to live as if God exists.

Premise 8. If you know that [S1] and that [S5], and you are able to live as
if God exists, rationality requires you to live as if God exists.

Conclusion 1. Rationality requires you to live as if God exists. [P6-8]

2 Probability and propensity

Premise 9. If (*) probability measures the strength of propensities via the
manifestation of those propensities, and what is marked (*) explains why
events have certain probabilities, then propensities (their strength, manifes-
tations thereof) should do the explaining.

Premise 10. Propensities &c. cannot do the explaining.

Conclusion 2. If (*), then (*) does not explain why events have certain
probabilities.